I will shortly be able to purchase a top of the line new computer system geared specifically towards graphics...keeping in mind that: A) I want a PC not a mac B) The programs I use most to create are Poser 4, Bryce 5, Vue and Photoshop 7. I occasionally run Painter Classic, PSP and Illustrator. What system specs would you guys suggest? I will definately be getting a 256MB video card and probably a PIV processor or higher..but what else? TIA, Skye

I'm looking into an Intel SE7505VB2 server board with dual 2.66GHz Xeon processors. Very nice. Onboard LAN, audio, and video. 8X AGP, 533MHz FSB, up to 8GB memory, Hyperthreading support. You can get the board, processors, and 2GB memory for about $1500. Before anyone spews about Poser not using both processors, at least you'lll have plenty of power available to do something else while rendering. BYS

Big difference is the harddisk, also. Using 2.8 intel (mb also - dont try shuttle as even though you can overclock - is worthless if you need to "count on" your computer to work) with 1g mem, vir mem set to 4096 min and 4096 max and has it's own harddrive with no other programs that run on it that has to do with 3d (currently use p4,p5,bryce,carrera2,autocad2k).

A dual monitor is wonderful; I have my 17" where I keep the hierarchy, properties and animation windows open so I have the 20" main window to do my "views" of characters.

My illustrator, photoshop, flash, director, psp (7 & 8 (8 I use with uvmapper pro)), etc. are screamin' but again - I have a seperate harddrive dedicated to handle all my graphic/movie/music stuff (a little coordination effort on my part).

I upgraded my main video card with agi ati atlantis pro (think mem is 128 (2nd montitor currently using pci matrix graphics MM - dont recommend)) but really didnt notice any difference except when i do movies but it does support 2 monitors on one card. Even with first release of P5, I did not have any problems with this configuration.

I use my old 1.8 with 512meg for Office stuff. Also, if you can get a deal on xpPro instead of xpHome - you will have a lot better os. But if you have old version of mimic (1) or dance studio or old games - you cannot run on ntsf disk format.

If you are using/attempting to use P5 - would suggest another disk that stores multiple runtimes (ie: people runtime directory, toons/animals runtime directory, etc) for your characters/actors. Mine brings up the different directories rapidly when I switch runtimes.

I have bought approximately 20+ computers for clients and myself from: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ and not had any great problems from clients or with my own (have 4 of them running since p3 450 currently on my home network).

Guess that is all I can think of for now....

Good luck!

Last year I bought a new computer from Tri Stars. I'm totally happy with it. I use the same programs you do. I kept this old computer for the internet. On Iron Bears advice. In fact I paid him a very small amount and he picked everything out for me. Since I don't know anything about this. I do know on this gateway crap-with 500mgs of memory Poser crashed everyday. I have never had Poser4 crashed on my TriStar Poser4. Poser5 did crash when it first came out so I took it off and won't use it at all. Get someone to help you, unless you know computors real well.

cant say this enuff fast harddrive ultra dma or similar lotsa ram (as much as you can afford) and a check sent weekly to my address for "computer tax" lol BT

Dual monitor is great - using GeForce4 TI 4600 with 21" and 19" CRTs. Harddrives are definitely a must. 80GB or greater at 7200RPM with 8MB Cache (Western Digital or Maxtor). Almost everything that size is UltraDMA/EIDE. And, yes, lotsa RAM. Note that the Intel board supports up to 8GB. Can't complain about that upward compatability. ;) BYS

Wacom Intuos graphic tablet...a must for Photoshop, Illustrator and Painter!

Intuos huh? I've got a Graphire but was thinking about getting something bigger....I'll look into that :D

I have two wacom's one that is 4x5 and the 6x9 one, I actually prefer the small one,you don't have to move around your hand so much . The intuos has a very good pen, lightweight, sensitive a pleasure to use.

hmm...I was looking at the 9 x 12 because I was planning on going bigger because I tend to use long sweeping strokes...i'm always running off the edgeof my 4 x 5 Graphire :D

That's a personnal preference I guess, see if you can try out different sizes somewhere.

Echoing cruzan's advice about Virtual Memory. It certainly is worth having a (fixed size) swap file in a partition made available on a seperate disk - that way both disks are read simultaneosly. I follow the same strategy, and also re-asign my temp files to the same partition which alleviates fragmentation. The biggest culprit for fragmentation problems tends to be Temporary Internet Files, and again I insist on a seperate partition solely for Temp Internet Files. I used to love fdisk, but static drive letter asignment in Win XP makes setting up partitions a breeze. I've a total of 15 partitions (on two very fast hard drives) and the time spent planning their allocation was time very well spent.

One thing I omitted to mention, is that if you can afford it put a RAID setup high on your list of priorities. I juggle optimal disk useage in the manner I've described above, and although I'm very happy with the results, I'm wasting the opportunity of using my RAID motherboard. If you can afford to employ two identical fast hard drives (rpm is crucial IMO) in a RAID systam, then you can reap the benefits of a permanent massive increase in both reading and writing speeds. Should a disk failure ever occur, you're also safeguarded against data loss.

The Intel SE7505VB2 has RAID onboard. ;) This is a very nice board or I wouldn't have just ordered one for myself. BYS

Get a DVD-burner if you have any money left. Wal-Mart actually carries the drives and blank media these days.

Dual Monitor YES! Dual CPU NO! Unless u r using Professional Software like Maya, it wont help u @ all. I own a dual MP and While Rendering its slow! For Poser5 get the fastest CPU u can. And 1.5 Gigs of Ram should be enough- 1 seems fine to. "BeatYourSoul" seems to forget, that Poser can't use morge than 2 gigs! And it realy never needs morge than 1 gig @ all. Having morge than 2 gigs installed releases a bunch of problems using Poser ;]

I'm using C4D XL8, LightWave 7.5, and Photoshop 7 as well as Poser. Eventually going to get Maya 5. But, as I said, Poser will only use one cpu, but the other is free for surfing, working in Photoshop or PSP, or whatever. That is an advantage that I really miss since my dual PIII system became a web server. Not for long. Anyway, I figure that someone looking to get a video card with 256MB memory seems to have money to afford a good system. I didn't forget, just that, hey, it's expandable beyond that if needed at some point. Not everyone stays with Poser indefinitely. If he decides to go for C4D, LW, Maya, 3DSMax, SoftImage, Houdini, or whatever, in the future, well, extensibility is already there. BYS

BTW, with the two 2.66GHz P4's, applications that support dual processors will run at 5.32GHz (not quite, of course). How's that for processing power for animation of complex scenes? I'm running a 2.54GHz P4 now and it screams. Expect to hear sonic booms with the new system... BYS

This is what I want to build. I think its a good "bang for buck" value: CPU -- Intel 2.Ghz6, 2.8Ghz, or 3.0Ghz with 800Mhz Front- Side Bus Motherboard -- ASUS P4P800 Deluxe (Intel 865PE Chipset) Memory -- PC3200 DDR 1GB(512x2) CAS 2 Video -- ATI Radeon 9700Pro Power Supply -- ANTEC 430W or 380W True Power My present storage is 10,000rpm Fujitsu SCSI Harddrive and 7,200rpm Quantum Harddrive. I plan to upgrade to Serial ATA at a later date.

SkyWolf - with the Intuos you can have different applications use different amounts of the tablet area, so if you get a large one you can use one corner for general navigation and then set it to use the full extent for Painter or Photoshop when you need space to swing. Doesn't help with fitting it on the desk of course.

Wow, thanks you guys you've given me a lot to ponder. :) Thanks for the tip on the Intuos, that's a nifty little feature to have...desk space isn't a big problem, went and picked out a nice big corner unit last year :D and BTW, just for vanity's sake, I'm a "she" ;) I'm keeping my old PC, nothing really wrong with it except it's 2 years out of date and not fast enough...I've got combined 32GB of hard drive space. planning on using it for MS Office, Internet and Work (subcontract data entry work to pay the bills) so that'll leave the new one free for graphics. (which is what is taking up most of the space right now...my poser stuff alone could fill 3 700MB cd's zipped!) I am planning on getting a Dual Monitor capable card..at the moment I've got two 19" monitors doing nothing and a 17" Flat screen so....lots of room to play there. :D Thanks for all your help everyone.